Sir Kenneth Murray

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Sir Kenneth Murray, British molecular biologist (born Dec. 30, 1930, East Ardsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, Eng.—died April 7, 2013, Edinburgh, Scot.), developed—in collaboration with a team that included his wife, molecular geneticist Noreen Murray—the first successful genetically engineered vaccine against the viral liver condition hepatitis B. He also made significant contributions to recombinant DNA research. Murray quit school at age 16 and took a job as a laboratory technician at the Boots Pure Drug Co. in Nottingham. He initially attended postsecondary school part-time but finally earned a B.Sc. in chemistry (1956) and a Ph.D. in microbiology (1959) from the University of Birmingham, where he met and married (1958) fellow Ph.D. student Noreen Parker. Murray held posts at Stanford University (1960–64) and at the University of Cambridge (1964–67) before joining (1967) the University of Edinburgh’s newly established department of molecular biology. He was named Biogen Professor of Molecular Biology in 1984 and retired in 1998. Murray cofounded (1978) the international company Biogen NV (later Biogen Idec) to hold the patent rights for his hepatitis B vaccine and to pursue new avenues of biotechnology research, and in 1983 he and his wife established the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh to administer the profits from the vaccine for the “promotion of research and education in natural science.” The Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library opened at the University of Edinburgh in July 2012, a little more than a year after Noreen’s death. Murray was elected to the Royal Society in 1979 and was knighted in 1993.